Street Fighter: The Animated Series

When I was a kid, I used to hate the "Street Fighter" cartoon. Being a big fan of the games, and the anime adaptations (Both the movie and the television show) I was very disappointed with the G.I. Joe treatment that this series received due the influence of the awful (but hilarious) live action movie in which this was inspired.

However, with the years, I started to appreciate this series, seeing it as one of the funniest unintentional comedies ever made.I mean, while this series is indeed pretty bad (With ridiculous plots, awful animation, an awkward character design and cheesy voice acting) it does have high amounts of entertainment value, being one of the most hilarious things that I've ever watched in my entire life.

Everything in this cartoon was so cheesy and over-the-top. And that's why it is so funny to watch.

Not only did the live action movie suck, but this crappy cartoon sucked even worse.

Possible the worst version of Street Fighter ever. The Anime followed the game much closer.

Definitely crap not worth watching if you're a true fan.

To start off we have crappy character designs, and even worse plot lines. It's no wonder this show went off the air so quickly. It's much worse than the Street Fighter II V series, which was a total disappointment and left us with more questions then answers. Thank god it will probably never see a DVD release.

One word sums up this 1995 TV series based on the popular Street fighter game by Capcom and the 1994 Street Fighter movie. That word is "inconsistent".

Quality of writing and animation varies greatly between seasons and even between episodes. Season 2 can be easily regarded as immensely superior to season 1(a trend that many 90s animated series seem to follow, like Fantastic four or Iron man)

Season 1 generally follows in the footsteps of the 1994 movie. Cheesy, self contained episodic stories. Some episodes, especially the more character centric episodes are quite good and help a lot with the character development. But some episodes come across as terrible toy advertisements. Sometimes characters are thrown in just to showcase their powers and the scripting at points is terrible with juvenile humor and cheesy dialogue. The animation in season 1 is mediocre. The character designs are nice, more realistic than the designs in the game or the Japanese manga. But choppy animation, simplistic art and static camera angles with little attention to detail lends to a very low budget look for majority of the episodes in season 1.

Season 2 saw a huge improvement in the show. Starting from the episode "The Hammer Strikes", one can tell the the overall tone of the second season is generally a lot more serious than the first. The episodes are still self contained but have an underlying storyline to tie everything up. Character subplots are carried on and developed nicely as the series goes along such as Blanka's conflict with the beast within, Cammy's mysterious past and Guile's wavering confidence in his leadership of the team. Animation in season is also taken up a huge notch. The animation is smoother and more dynamic utilizing a good mix of close-ups, full body pans and kinetic framing of shots to give the show a very strong, almost movie-style look. Some episodes are even on par with the quality in the Japanese Street Fighter anime movie. With the improvement in animation, the art detail takes a jump too. The blacks are heavy and body contours are sharper, all adding to the enjoyment.

A small side note here. The portrayal of the "special powers" like Guile's Sonic Boom or Ryu's hadouken in this series is possibly the most true to the game ever. In the game, a single Hadouken can be fired multiple times and just knocks an opponent down. It does not destroy require great strain on Ryu, nor does a single blast take down a building(as portrayed in other adaptations of Street fighter).

So overall, this series was a noble effort, possibly one of the better animated series based on a game. Shaky at first but finally showed improvement. The characters were easy to relate to, the animation and writing were enjoyable in the end. Personally, i recommend just watching the first episode, then skipping to episode 14 onward.

I give it 7 out of 10 for a good effort, and in keeping true to the spirit of the game it is based on. Not perfect, but not bad either.

I watched street fighter 2 v first and that show was amazing.

Coming in to this I expected the same.

Well... Ai only was able to endure 2 episodes because it was bad and dumb. Ryu and Ken are dumb in this version.

Guile is a boy scout.

Chung Li is cringe.

Its obvious that Americans produced this because it was bad.

Please skip this tv show. Rewatch sf2v 20 times before you even touch this version.

This was a very cool show. Continuing after "Street Fighter: the Movie" (1994), (I don't care what anyone says, I liked that movie.) this cartoon followed Colonel William F. Guile and his co-horts as they tried to stop Major Bison (and some other villains, when it wasn't him).

Being a fan of the games and flick, I thought this show was perfect for someone like me. "Street Fighter: the cartoon" tied-in the movie's universe with the games'. The characters kept true to both universes, and truly became one of my favorite shows based off a video game.

Guile's main team consisted of man-beast Charlie Blanka, (his friend in the game, who was mutated into a beast by Bison and Dhalsim) news reporter Chun-Li Zang, (who also has a score to settle with Bison) and Ken Masters and Ryu Hoshi, two con men who Guile previously partnered with. His other teammates included action movie star Fei-Long (who was not in the movie), Native American T. Hawk (one of his aides), Jamaican kickboxer Dee Jay (back on Guile's side...cool!), sumo wrestler E. Honda, Professor Dhalsim (the aforementioned doctor-he and Blanka didn't always get along), and his other aide, Cammy (who temporarily teamed with Bison) Bison's team had his gun-runner Viktor Sagat and his protege, Vega, and Bison's hired muscles Zangief and Balrog (who could operate a computer pretty good...like Dee Jay in the movie.)

This show started tying in the movie with Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Some other characters, like Akuma Long, Ken and Ryu's master's evil brother, and Captain Sawada appeared in this show, too. Later, Street Fighter Alpha characters like Sodom, Birdie and Rose appeared, and Alpha elements like Bison controlling Cammy's mind came into play, keeping in date with the games.

Essentially, Guile and Bison were the lead hero and villain, but sometimes they would stray from it a little and focus on Ken and Ryu, who, in the game, are the leads. One episode I remember involved Ken having many problems, like drinking and staying out too late, while forgetting his Shotokan training. Ryu and Fei-Long had to assist Ken back to his old ways. It ended with Ken and Ryu joining hands in friendship in the end.

I remember this show aired on the USA network. Does anyone know if it's still on? If not, Toonami should definitely pick it up. I am convinced that video games can make great cartoons. Other good examples are the Super Mario Brothers shows, Pokemon, Sonic the Hedgehog (the ABC cartoon, not AoStH or Underground) and Donkey Kong Country. Some can be total stinkers, (*Cough cough* Double Dragon *Cough*) but still, this is another good one. Give this show a shot, even if you didn't like the live-action movie. In my opinion, it blows away the Street Fighter anime movie.

*Street Fighter will never die*